&c.; others on fruit; others on raw, dressed, or tainted meat. Common bat often found in larders clinging to a joint of meat, sucking a good meal. Dormant during the day; seen during the twilight of summer evenings flitting through the air.

"What shall I call thee? Bird, beast, or neither?"
"Just what you will; I'm rather both than either;
Much like the season when I whirl my flight,
The dusk of evening, neither day nor night."

Torpid in winter; reposes suspended, head downwards, covered with its wings.

Vampire sucks human blood from any part of the body exposed during sleep; six ounces lost by a man in one night, from sleeping with his foot uncovered; attacks horses also. Bats of this country are harmless. May be tamed; has been trained to take food from its master's hand. Occasionally destroyed in great numbers-e. g., during one night one hundred and eighty five were taken from the eaves of Queen's College, Cambridge, and two hundred and eighty-six the next.

IV. Uses.

Draw from the children its use.

1. A great destroyer of insects; eats large quantities; the earth scarcely habitable without it.

2. Serves as food; the vampire, when fat, eaten by Indians; the frugivorous eaten in the Isle of Bourbon, Madagascar, and Java; in flavour like a partridge.

3. Its hair used to ornament their war-clubs by the natives of New Caledonia.

V. Adaptation of its Structure.

a. Its acute sense of hearing and feeling protects it from danger in the pursuit of its prey.

b. Dormant when food is scarce; few insects to be had in winter.

c. Its wings suited for suspension :

"The bat that, with hook'd and leathery wings,
Clung to the cave-roof."

LESSON XXIV. THE BEAR.

I. Description of Appearance and Structure.

EXHIBIT a print of a bear, and elicit the particulars by interrogation. Quadruped; plantigrade (from Latin planta, "a sole," and gradus, "a step"); they walk upon the soles of their feet. Compare with the tiger or cat; how do they walk? Heavy body; peculiar gait; very strong paws; five toes, armed with sharp claws. Omnivorous (require the etymology). Teeth resemble men's. Size, from eight to ten feet long; one taken weighed one thousand six hundred pounds. Three chief kinds — (a) white or polar, (b) black, and (c) brown. Other varieties, the grizzly and Syrian.

II. Regions and Countries where found.

Inhabits every zone; formerly a native of Great Britain.

a. White found in Polar regions; sometimes seen floating on the icebergs in the Atlantic Ocean : "Where the shivering huntsmen tear

Their fur coats from the grim white bear."

b. Black, in America; a smaller species in India.

c. Brown, in Asia, Russia, Sweden, and forests of Central Europe.

III. Disposition, Habits, Food, &c.

Surly; solitary and capricious; very ferocious; nocturnal; extremely sagacious. Powerful swimmer; can swim a distance of eighteen or twenty miles. Lives in caves or hollow trees. Torpid during winter:—

"The shapeless bear,

With dangling ice all horrid, stalks forlorn ;
Slow-paced and sourer as the storms increase,
He makes his bed beneath the inclement drift."

Re-appears in spring-hungry and wild, "bony and gaunt, and grim;" attacks any living thing coming in its way; suffocates its enemies by embracing them with its strong fore paws. May, however, be overcome:- e. g., a gentleman in Canada encountered a brown bear; it sprung upon him in a plantation; he clasped his arms round it, and, being a powerful man, hugged it in return. Bruin was so surprised that he loosened his hold, and made his escape. White bear has larger feet, covered with long hair; why? Food, various : the whitefish, seals, seaweeds, marsh plants, and mountain berries; the black-vegetables and honey ("they'll gnaw for days together at the trunk of a tree, till they make a hole big enough to get in their paws, and then they'll haul out honey, bees and all"); the brown-flesh and vegetables.

IV. Manner of Capture.

Generally tracked by dogs; shot or speared. In Kamtschatka the hunters secrete themselves behind trees, and fire on their prey as it approaches them.

V. Uses to which applied.

a. Skin. - Very valuable for its fur; best ob

tained from the black; fine and glossy; manufactured into gloves, military caps, rugs, muffs, and clothing generally.

b. Flesh.-Eaten; resembles pork.

c. Fat.-Made into "bears' grease," a pomatum. d. Hide.. Yields the strongest leather. e. Intestines. -Used for window panes, as a substitute for glass, by northern nations.

VI. Scriptural References.

Elicit from the children where they are mentioned; e. g.:

1. Children of Bethel slain by two she-bears. (2 Kings, ii. 24.)

2. David slew one, preying upon his flock. (1 Sam. xvii. 34.)

3. The she-bear's intense affection for her young noticed in Prov. xvii. 12; Hosea, xiii. 8.

LESSON XXV. THE BEAVER.

ALLOW the children to examine a print of the animal, and then proceed to draw from them the particulars.

I. Appearance and Structure.

A quadruped; about two feet long, one foot high; covered with hair of a light brown colour; small eyes, far apart; upper lip cleft, like the hare's; fore-teeth very strong Rodentia; cuts down trees (by gnawing) six or eight inches thick; short legs; each of its four feet has five toes

hinder like the webbed feet of water-birds. Tail, very peculiar; half as long as its body; oval; destitute of hair or fur; resembles an oar; marked with scaly divisions like a fish.

II. Countries where found.

Common to Europe, Asia, and America; wanting in Africa. Generally found in the colder climates of these divisions. e. g., on the banks of the Danube, Rhone, Elbe; Euphrates; St. Lawrence. Now extinct in England. In the tenth century it was met with in only one river in Wales and one in Scotland.

III. Habits, Disposition, Food, &c.

Social-lives in large companies of two or three hundred; amphibious. Inhabits extensive dwellings, nests or houses, built on the banks of rivers or shores of lakes; sometimes these are seven feet high, with walls nearly as thick; circular or oval; the domed roofs resemble ovens ; from ten to thirty nests built together; uses its paws and teeth in constructing them; and its tail as a prop when standing erect; has retreats (holes), to which it retires when hunted. When no pond offers, chooses a flat piece of ground with a running stream; raises a dam with stakes and mud and clay; solid banks often very long; works during the night; lines the floor of its dwelling with moss. Provides a store of provisions for winter use; food consists of bark, tender branches, and water-plants. In summer they ramble in troops; when at home, a sentinel placed to watch - gives an alarm by a peculiar cry. A builder; the European variety has this power less developed, generally living in burrows. When domesticated, will build with brushes, boots, shoes, pieces of wood, books, &c.

IV. Manner of Capture.

Trapped in summer; sometimes taken in nets. Generally hunted in winter; hunters, armed with